


Travail - The Unexpected Mother

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1529]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22287835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: As Christmas draws nearer and the team discuss traditions, they find themselves in the middle of a case featuring a young pregnant woman. Nothing about the case is normal. Will they unravel it before Christmas? What impact will it have on their lives?
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1529]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: 2020 Twelve Days of Christmas, The Writer's Guild Community





	Travail - The Unexpected Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 07/08/2003 for the word [travail](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/07/08/travail).
> 
> travail[ truh-veyl, trav-eyl ]  
> noun  
> painfully difficult or burdensome work; toil.  
> pain, anguish or suffering resulting from mental or physical hardship.  
> the pain of childbirth.  
> verb (used without object)  
> to suffer the pangs of childbirth; be in labor.  
> to toil or exert oneself.
> 
> This is for Day 4 of the Twelve Days of Christmas challenge. Today's prompt is Roasted.

“Are chestnuts really that good?” Tony pondered as Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire played in the background.

“You’ve never had any?” McGee tilted his head as if Tony was some new specimen of animal that he didn’t recognize.

“Nope,” Tony popped the p.

“That’s a shame. They’re really quite nice,” Bishop mused.

“You’ve had them?”

“Yes. My family loves them. They are a staple at Christmas time.”

“How do you cook them?”

“Depends on who is hosting. Usually it’s at my parents and my mother toils over the wood stove with them until they are perfect.”

“They are other ways to cook them?” Tony probed.

“Blasphemy,” McGee objected. “They’re only good over the open fire.”

“My brothers prefer that method of cooking. Mom’s too likely to burn them if she tries the open fire, though.”

“Save the chestnuts for when we don’t have a case,” Gibbs interrupted, moving quickly to his desk to retrieve his badge and gun before heading for the elevator. 

He didn’t bother to see if his team followed. He knew they would. As expected, all three of them scrambled to grab their gear and chased after Gibbs not wanting to get left behind. 

“What do we have?”

“We’ll know when we get there,” Gibbs growled.

“Translation, you hung up after dispatch told you where the crime scene was.”

Gibbs grunted.

Tony rolled his eyes and dialed dispatch to get the rest of the information that Gibbs hadn’t bothered to listen to. Gibbs took the driver’s seat and everyone else quickly fastened their seat belt. Gibbs didn’t wait for anyone.

Dispatch didn’t have a ton of details, but they did share that a jogger had found the body in Rock Creek Park. Tony thanked dispatch and hung up. At least they knew they weren’t walking into a firefight.

Gibbs slammed on the breaks and the tires squealed as they ground to a halt in a parking space. They would have to walk from here to the crime scene. Tony stopped in his tracks as he reached the crime scene.

Dispatch hadn’t mentioned anything like this. A woman travailed through either false labor or real labor. Tony wasn’t sure which. Nor did he have any desire to know the difference between the two.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” McGee broached. “Are you related to the dead petty officer?”

The woman shook her head. 

“Do you need help?” McGee continued.

She huffed. “I will be fine. It will pass soon,” she gasped out.

“Are you sure? We can summon an ambulance,” McGee insisted.

“No hospital,” she protested, breathing harshly.

“Bishop. Help her,” Gibbs waved vaguely in the direction of the pregnant woman. “DiNozzo, McGee, start bagging and tagging,” Gibbs ordered.

The team followed Gibbs’ directions as they waited for Jimmy and Ducky to arrive. They couldn’t do much with the body until Ducky and Jimmy had a chance to look it over. McGee fingerprinted the petty officer and frowned when the prints didn’t come up in the database.

Everything about this crime scene was weird. The pregnant lady, the petty officer who wasn’t in the system, what was going on here? Tony had to shake his head at the fact that this case fell into their laps with Christmas just around the corner. 

He hoped that the case would not interfere with Christmas plans, but the truth was that it was so strange, how could it not? They couldn’t even figure out who their victim was and Bishop’s report of the pregnant lady’s hospital visit brought even more confusion. She slipped out when the doctors weren’t watching and no one had seen hide nor hair of her since.

Tony hoped that she had gone home to her family; that she would have a merry Christmas with her child to be, but he doubted very much that it would be the case. They’d spent days searching for her to no avail. They’d kind of given up on finding her. There was a police report and she’d been added to the missing person database, but the chances of her being found with no clues were slim. 

They weren’t making any better progress with the dead petty officer either. Ducky had tried matching teeth. Abby had tried matching DNA. They were running out of possible ways to find out who this man was. 

It was like somebody had tried to eradicate his entire existence. Almost like he’d been cleaned out of the system by a professional. There were few people good enough to be able to wipe someone’s existence so thoroughly from the system, but even looking into those people had yielded no clues.

They’d all tried their various contacts, personal and otherwise, but nobody seemed to be able to find out just who this person was. Tony had a bad feeling that someone had purposefully erased this person’s identity, so that they could abscond with it. Gibbs, well technically McGee, had initiated a fleet wide search for any new recruits or changes in behavior of existing recruits in hopes that if someone had used the petty officer’s identity that they could find them before it was too late.

At this rate, the case would be forced onto the cold cases pile, but Tony feared that it would be too late for any of them to enjoy Christmas, roasting chestnuts or not. They were all quite shaken. Even with all his years as law enforcement, Tony had never run into anything quite like this.

Even Gibbs was stumped and he had the most training of any of them. Tony had the best knack for finding clues in unexpected places, but Gibbs was the one who was most likely to find the clues in plain sight. The fact that the pregnant lady had disappeared as well, added a touch of unreality to the whole situation.

Bishop had gotten her name, but it appeared to be an alias or just plain made up. They could find no evidence that anyone by that name existed. Eventually Gibbs told them to pack it up and not come back until the day after tomorrow. There wasn’t much of Christmas left, but at least they would have the day after Christmas as well.

Tony had thought that the team would spend Christmas together. They’d spent the last week tearing their hair out over this case, however, so Tony doubted that anyone else was interested in hanging out. He was surprised when Gibbs ordered everyone to his house for dinner that evening. 

They all trooped over as commanded. Tony had no idea what to expect. He didn’t think that Gibbs had been planning in advance for them to come over. 

He was shocked when he walked in the door and saw their missing pregnant lady. “Gibbs? What’s going on here?”

“This is Sharon,” Gibbs announced.

“Sharon? She said her name was Jennifer when I asked.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t know who I could trust.”

“You trusted Gibbs?”

Sharon, or Jennifer or whoever she was, shook her head. “No. He found me.”

“Where?”

“I had made a small home for myself in the park.”

“You were going to spend Christmas alone with little shelter in the park?”

Sharon nodded. “I’m used to it. This isn’t the first time my parents have kicked me out for being pregnant.”

“Of course, Gibbs immediately invited you to Christmas dinner with us when he realized, right?” Abby flutter her eyelashes endearingly. 

“Gibbs has graciously offered to let me stay in his house until I’m back on my feet.”

“That’s great,” Abby quickly grabbed Sharon in a hug in her excitement.

After that, everyone settled down. Sharon took a seat in a recliner in the corner and conversation flowed amongst the rest. Sharon was apart, but also of the celebration.

She could participate or not as she chose. Mostly, she seemed inclined to let the others talk and just listen. Tony noticed her rubbing her stomach periodically and wondered how her baby was doing. It was clear that she hadn’t given birth yet.

Tony still wondered if she truly didn’t know the dead petty officer. Actually, they didn’t even know if he was a petty officer. Since he wasn’t in the registry it was possible that he wasn’t actually a sailor.

Maybe Gibbs could get more out of her as she stayed with him and wasn’t that a puzzling situation. Gibbs had let all of the team stay over at one point or another, but Tony had never expected him to let a complete stranger stay with him. Gibbs was the most capable person he knew, so Tony wasn’t worried about him. He’d just always been such a private man. Even after working with him for so many years there was a lot that Tony didn’t know about Gibbs.

After the steak was served, Gibbs started roasting chestnuts over the fire in his fireplace. Tony stared mystified at this treat that he’d never had before. He startled when one of the chestnuts popped. 

The group laughed and Tony even chuckled a bit. He hadn’t realized that they jumped when they cooked. He’d always assumed that it was kind of like cooking in the oven where you stuck them on a pan and all they did was brown a little.

Eventually they were done and handed out for everyone to try. Tony watched as Sharon meekly tasted one. She immediately made a face like she’d just taste a lemon and spit it out on her plate. 

A little more cautious now, Tony tried his own. He was surprised by how good they tasted. There was an overwhelming nutty flavor, but one he enjoyed. 

By unspoken agreement, everyone bedded down in the middle of Gibbs’ living room. Well Sharon didn’t, but she had the guest bedroom. Everyone else, even Gibbs, made their beds on the floor. 

They had the next day off, but Tony couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just the noise of the other sleepers. It wasn’t even how close everyone was sleeping together. 

He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were missing something with the case. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that the entire case was Gibbs playing a prank on them. Gibbs had never done anything like this before, however, and Tony just couldn’t believe that it was true.

At the same time, the pregnant young woman and dead petty officer didn’t make sense. Giving up on sleep, Tony quietly made his way out of his blankets. He decided to check in on Sharon and see how she was doing.

He wouldn’t wake her if she was sleeping, but he thought perhaps they could talk if she was awake. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew more than she was telling. Alas, she was asleep unlike Tony.

With a sigh he returned downstairs and tried to go to sleep. It wasn’t any more successful the second time. Tony would like to say that he slept, but he didn’t.

Eventually, he gave up again. This time, he went over to his backpack and pulled out his case notes. There was something that was bothering him about the entire scene.

First, dispatch didn’t mention the pregnant woman. That was weird by itself. Dispatch should have informed them if they knew and if they didn’t know then she wasn’t there when it was called in.

If she wasn’t there when it was called in, why would she choose to stop by a dead guy. Could she have been the killer returning to check out her work before it was taken away? Or was she also a victim of the killer and just kept alive for some reason? Perhaps her baby was the murderer’s son or daughter?

He flipped to the result sections and noted that there was an unidentified blood sample from their dead petty officer. They also had what blood work the hospital had gotten before she left and that was another weird thing why was she so anti-hospital? Her blood work didn’t match and Tony breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t the killer.

He couldn’t rule out that the killer might have forced himself on her. On the other hand, if that was the case then she would have been with him for a very long time for her baby to be so far along. Unless the baby wasn’t the killer’s. 

He definitely had more questions than answers, but he couldn’t help feeling like Sharon was the key. Eventually morning rolled around and Gibbs started cooking breakfast. The others started showing signs of life except for Sharon who remained in her room. 

If he was right, though, she had every right to be cautious and the entire team deserved to be roasted by Gibbs for missing the obvious. He would wait until after breakfast before broaching the subject with her, but he was pretty sure that the killer had held her captive and she’d escaped.

She probably recognized the killer’s preferred method of death. She was probably afraid that they would arrest her. Tony was sure that she could lead them to the killer, but they’d have to be careful about the subject or they’d scare her away again.

She still hadn’t appeared though and Tony worried that they’d already scared her away. He peeked in on her and was relieved to see that she was awake and just staring off into space. 

“Are you hungry? Breakfast will be ready soon,” Tony shared.

Sharon nodded, but made no other sound to indicate that she’d heard him. Tony left her there and returned to the kitchen. By the time everything was set out and ready for people to help themselves, Sharon had joined them, but she looked shy and frightened. It was like reality had set in on her. 

“Are you ok?” Tony probed.

Sharon nodded and then shook her head. 

“What’s the matter?”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I promise we won’t be mad,” Bishop assured.

“I know who your killer is.”

“Who?”

“The father of my child.”

“What?” McGee gasped.

Slowly the entire story spilled out and they all listened. It wasn’t a normal Christmas, but somehow Sharon had become part of the family and they all were enthralled by her terrifying story. They promised that they would protect her. 

Even though they had the day off, they quickly started making plans for how they would catch the guy when they returned to work. They were a team, a family. They protected each other even when they deserved roasting and that included Sharon now.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has no stories already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least no more stories before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> The 2020 Prompts are open now! Go forth and prompt me! [Click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2020/profile) to add your prompts to my 2020 Prompt Collection. Just click the sign up link. ;) I'm hoping to complete all the 2020 prompts by the end of 2021. 
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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